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Comment by caconym_ | Hacker News Reader

> From other statistics I've seen, the massive increase in SUV's is mentioned as the single largest factor.

I've been saying for years that driving a large SUV or truck without a legitimate need for its capabilities is an antisocial act, for precisely this reason and also the fact that, all other things being equal, a vehicle (and its occupants) colliding with another vehicle will fare worse the larger that other vehicle is. Whether my own assumptions were right or wrong, I'm glad we're finally starting to talk about this. For a long time, it seemed to be a huge blind spot in existing analyses of injurious/fatal road accidents.

It makes me absolutely livid when I walk past a shiny new lifted pickup with an empty bed and my head is just about level with the front of the hood. How have we grown to accept these things driving around on public roads with no higher bar to entry than that required to drive a Geo Metro?

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I think we need another license class for vehicles larger than your average 4-door sedan (or saloon, in the UK). An F-150, Highlander, or Suburban drive and handle appreciably different than the Civic or Accord-sized vehicle that most drivers-ed classes use. And it shows when you see how people park or drive these larger vehicles in crowded areas. We’ve essentially discounted the increase in vehicle size to whether you can get financing for it, with no regard to your ability to drive it.

There is another class called: CDL. Commercial Drivers License and it is required for vehicles over a certain tonnage or with air brakes.

Why not just reduce the tonnage to 4,000lbs for example? Easy. You want to drive a Humvee, go get a CDL first.

I was referring to another class above regular, but not a CDL. People who drive SUVs don’t need a commercial license.

As a biker, Geo Metros are unacceptable. It makes me c absolutely livid when I bike past a shiny new Geo Metro which is 1800 pounds of wasted metal and my knee caps are about level with the front. How have we grown to accept these things driving around on public roads with no higher bar to entry than that required to bike in my BMX?

I see this all the time where I live, and it drives me insane. Truck culture is a waste of resources. What causes someone to pay $$$$ to decrease the efficiency of their vehicle? And don’t even get me started on soft rubber mud tires that only see pavement...

Obligatory MMM article:

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015/04/28/what-does-your-wor...

My mother was insistent on driving SUVs because she said she could see the road better from higher up, which to me really just meant that when she would look at cars, she wouldn't consider the feature she actually needed: raisable seats.

However, in practice, she backed into a couple poles in her old SUV and said she didn't see them. Hm.

She now drives a car instead of an SUV and not once has complained about being unable to see, and I don't think it has raisable seats, so I think she may have simply convinced herself of something that was untrue.

This seems like a strange reaction. Why would it make a difference if the bed is empty?

It indicates they’re not using it for work.

Well, I don't want to say trucks shouldn't be allowed on public roads at all. That would exclude working vehicles that serve crucial roles in our society.

The condition of a truck's bed, i.e. is it dusty and marked up by loads carried, is it full of gear, etc., serves as a proxy for whether the operator of the vehicle has been or is currently making use of the capabilities it offers beyond e.g. a compact hatchback. If they are not, I see that as a signal that they belong to the category of truck owners who own them for vanity and/or personal expression reasons rather than because they need the carrying capacity. This sort of ownership is, I believe (as I said) an antisocial act.

This signal is not perfect, but as I keep it to myself in every case I don't feel that I'm harming anybody by making these judgments, and if someone could demonstrate to me that e.g. the majority of F-series truck (the most popular "car" in America, last I checked) owners need that capacity, as in they use it on a regular basis to the extent that a smaller vehicle would not suffice, I'd be happy to change my thinking.

There definitely are truck owners like that, but I think there are a lot of truck owners who don't use them for their job, but extensively for work on and around their home and for recreation (or for activities which are both productive and recreational, like fishing and hunting), and that many of these folks like to take care of their trucks and try to keep them looking clean.

For most people, it's far from a given that those activities require the sort of vehicle I'm talking about.

Regardless, all this fixation on my "empty bed" comment is totally missing the point. We should look at the data, at how many human lives are lost each year because of the proliferation of these vehicles, and on that basis we should decide whether further regulation and/or transit engineering is needed to protect the public. People are, evidently, dying because of said proliferation, and that's just totally unacceptable to me.

Maybe I just don't understand the mindset that I should be able to do whatever I want, for my own vanity/amusement/whatever, at any cost to my fellow humans up to and including the loss of their lives.

this probably isn't what GP cares about, but it is kind of silly to drive around a pickup truck with no weight in the bed. these vehicles are designed to handle a heavy load in the bed. the tradeoff is that a pickup doesn't actually have it's best handling when the bed is totally empty. it's not catastrophically dangerous, but a pickup with an empty bed is more susceptible to stuff like lift-off oversteer than something like an SUV, which isn't designed with the same assumptions.

The empty bed idea is a terrible one. It'll only encourage people to leave their beds loaded.

The only wrecks (only fender benders) I've ever been in were when I had a heavily loaded bed or was pulling a trailer. Not only does stopping distance increase, but weight is sometimes taken off of the front tires, meaning ability to steer/swerve is also impaired.

This is one of those rules that not only would have the opposite of the desired, but also increase the severity of accidents that do occur.

> The empty bed idea

What's the "empty bed idea"?

> This is one of those rules

Which rule?

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